In the article "Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name," James Lincoln Collier
explains that anxiety is a very common part of our life in our society and that to
defeat anxiety is to confront it and face it as we grow and learn from it instead of
backing away. Collier uses several of his personal experiences and explains
how each helped him to overcome his anxiety. With each obstacle that he faced,
he developed three basic rules for himself. Collier had a chance to go on a trip to
Argentina with his roommate, Ted. Being away for two months sounds exciting
but he is having a second thought, and he end up turning down the invitation. It
scared him of being in a new, strange country. He regreted by not going through
the Argentina trip, and it taught him a lesson. This lesson made him developed
his first rule: "do what makes you anxious, don't do what makes you depressed."
He also found out that the person he admired, Duke Ellington, still has stage
fright, eventhough he has been performing for more than thirty years, and by
knowing that, Ellington inspired Collier. After doing a couple of interviews, he
noticed that he is not that scared anymore. He had benefited and discovered
from the process of phychologist call "extinction." Which he had came up with
his second rule: "you'll never eliminate anxiety by avoiding the things that caused
it." Collier had put out his anxiety by confronting it; in addition, Collier developed
his third rule: "you can't learn if you don't try." To illustrate his third rule, some
years ago he had an offer to do a writing assignment that will require him to three
months of travel to Europe. Furthermore, Collier is unable to speak French but it
didn't stop him on accepting the assignment. In the end, Collier points out that
"the new, the different, is almost by definitions scary. But each time you try
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